@papahuhu I believe that the Homely algorythms need improvement; I have had many conversations with the techies about this and I gather that the app will endeavour to maintane the temperature so that it meets the highest setting over the next day or two if in the Smart+ or Smart mode. I am using the Standard mode as this does seem to allow my actual settings to be obeyed; I am currently using slightly different temperature settings during any 24 hours and Homely follows this regime (but only if set to ‘Standard’ mode.) Perhaps give that a try.

Only today, I was musing about writing to their techies about this ‘feature’ as I feel the programmers are missing something and should be less obsessive about keeping the highest setting as a priority! Regards, Toodles.

@toodles 

Thank you kindly for the suggestion, I will try, but yes that’s a significant design flaw.

It’s not as if I can turn the heat pump completely off at night, we have antifreeze valves and I don’t want them dumping the heating fluid every time we have a cloudless night sky. 

@papahuhu Doesn't your heat pump periodically circulate between the house and the outside unit when the outside temp drops?

@howardp99 

If you mean running the circulation pump without running the compressor, if it does I’ve never noticed it doing so. Does it use the return flow temp or the external unit temp as the reference value?

Is this circulation feature or parameter (which make sense to me to prevent freezing) a setting I’d find in the heat pump control unit or is it driven by the homely interface please? 

thank you

@papahuhu I have a Samsung Gen7 HP and this has an automatic frost protection system that will simply circulate the water if it detects a frost risk whilst not active. I don't run Homely but would expect the frost protection would still run even if I did have Homely.

@toodles 

I don’t know if you noticed it but there has been a very recent addition to the section where you can add or edit the heating schedule. Four choices of schedules, a “max savings” an “ultimate comfort” and a “ balanced and buget” in addition to the smart+. 
I don’t know if they really change the heating algorithms, but I do see that the first 3 remain on the “smart” setting, rather than “standard”. I’m trying the max savings one as it matched my 17C set point anyway, I will let you know if it helps, the cynic in me suspects it won’t. 

@howardp99 

Thank you. Mine is the older Gen 6, but I will have a look at the operation manual to see if it has the same or similar function. But so far, I can’t get the damned thing to stop heating at night and cooking me! My installer stopped all heat pump operations about 3 weeks after my install, whilst I was very happy with the design and install the support is no longer available and I’m working through with them how to transfer their residual customer liabilities. 

@papahuhu I know this tread is about the Homely controller but you might also try dropping an email to either Henri Casteleyn or Alex Nelson at Havenwise. They support Samsung HPs and will provide a control system that will get your heat pump running using a very slick third-party thermostat. For Samsung systems they supply the Shelly wifi thermostat and it provides unbelievably precise temperature control (I am getting constant temperatures to within 0.1°C and no hysteresis. Unbelievable. I believe the Havenwise approach is similar to what Homely does (but I am no expert here) but there is no wiring or circuit modifications with Havenwise. They charge £50/year and have provided me with fantastic 1:1 support. Their system will "learn" how your house responds during teh first few days and then tailor the control accordingly. I've been with them for about 9 months. The Havenwise approach is effectively to minimise the flow temperature and modulate the frequency of the compressor aiming to achieve the lowest possible energy consumption as well as minimising short-cycling during the less cold periods. You may want to check that your Gen6 can be modulated. The Gen7 can. Using the minimum flow temperature approach does take some getting used to, as Henri and Alex will probably testify! Unless it is very cold outside or you are asking for a rapid rise in temperature then the radiators will feel pretty cool. The system looks to achieve the set point temperature 24 hours per day. You can have as many program steps as you want, and each day can be different, but if the system sees a conflict in terms of a lower future temperature that is inconsistent with the current programmed set point temperature such that the algorithm knows the house will not cool down sufficiently in time, then it will limit the current temperature so as to avoid this future conflict. My preference would be to treat the cooling aspect as a passive request rather than a "hard demand" but the overall approach is to avoid large temperature swings and so ensure that the active heating flow temperature is as low as possible. Effectively, this is what the Samsung WaterLaw should have been all along rather than just setting the flow temperature based on the outside air temperature and using a pretty useless thermostat built into the hard-wired and ugly controller which has no place in a living room setting. Given the low cost of the Havenwise installation I can't see what possible reason there is not to try it given your apparent situation. All you have to do is get the Shelly onto you wifi network and make a few Field Setting Value changes on the controller. Reasonably simple to do.

@papahuhu Oh! Thank you, I hadn’t spotted that! Possibly missed it as it is included under the ‘Smart+’ heading rather than a separate section of its own! Quick look but have not tried any changes yet, on the face of it, it looks as though the options are presets they have chosen but I would need to edit or alter the settings for my requirements if that is possible. Regards and Thanks, Toodles.

As you were I think, the options appear to be just some presets and I don’t think they are linked in any way to the logic algorithms, thus the over-temperature tendencies are unlikely to be any more tamed than my old schedule provided. I may be wrong of course - but I have reverted to my old schedule for now. Regards, Toodles.  

One thing though, they have responded to my request for the Homely app to work in landscape mode on the iPad - though the text is still on the small side for me to manage😉 (Did I mention, I’m 78 today?😆) Toodles.

@toodles 

I can’t get the installer app to recognise the serial number of my controller when on an iPad. I was wondering if it was because the installer has already registered my unit on their list of installations and it doesn’t allow more than 1 registration, or whether it was because I was doing it on an iPad. Have you ever successfully accessed the dashboard for your system please?

(I tried the preset last night and it didn’t ramp the heat pump down at night), in fact I didn’t notice any difference at all. I’m going to buy a cheap temperature logger and try to locate the warmest spot and move the node there. I suspect my bedroom is several degrees warmer than the current node location, but I want to be sure.

I used to work in Switzerland about 20 years ago and the house had a heat pump from the previous owner, I don’t remember ever having any niggles with that system. It just used to run all year round in the background, never missed a beat.